Saturday, July 16, 2005

Dick Cheney's rolodex

LinkedIn is all about connections, so here's an interesting fact:

In 1995, Dick Cheney was appointed as CEO of Halliburton. Yet he didn't have any business experience, much less as CEO of a global Fortune 500 company like Halliburton.

So why was he hired for the top position?

Answer: he was not hired per se. What Halliburton "hired" or acquired, in fact, was his Rolodex. As Secretary of Defense, he had an extensive network of contacts. Indeed, as is well known in those circles, if you wanted to do anything important in the oil business of the Middle East, Cheney was the man to see.

As it turned out, hiring him was a good decision by Halliburton. In subsequent years, the company did business in the Middle East worth billions of dollars!